India's Homeless Women Build A Way Off The Streets

BOMBAY — For three decades, Samina Ansari has lived in a tin and plastic hut on a sidewalk near Jhula Maidan in central Bombay, with a small dream: to have a house of her own.

Now, Ansari's dream is about to become a reality. She and other women from Mahila Milan, a women's collective, have started building their own houses in Mankhurd, an eastern suburb of the city.

The Milan Nagar Cooperative Housing Society will house 536 families now living on the streets of Bombay. Each brick and mortar structure will be a two-story, two-family house. Every five houses will share a toilet and a tap. A model house has already been built.

A tiny home in a distant, windswept locale may not mean much to some unless, like Ansari, they have spent three decades living on a sidewalk.

Ansari and her husband came to Bombay 30 years ago, looking for work. Since then, Ansari has lived in a precarious tin structure, measuring 10 by 8 feet. Her husband, who worked as a handcart-puller, died a year ago. Her three married daughters live on nearby streets.

One son lives with his wife in a loft within the tiny hut. Another son and his wife occupy the main hut, and Ansari sleeps on a cot outside the hut.

Bathing and cooking are done in tiny areas within the hut. The family uses a public toilet at one rupee (2.5 cents) per visit and fills water from a community tap.

According to a survey by the National Slum Dwellers Federation, 23,000 families live on Bombay's streets.

"So, just getting the land has been a dream come true," says Ansari, who despite her years of hardship is cheerful and energetic.

The land was provided by the government under the slum rehabilitation policy. It is not often that the government has recognized rights of the homeless.

"This is not just a celebratory occasion for us," says Laxmi Naidu, a Mahila Milan leader who lives on the sidewalk of Sophia Zubair Road in Nagpada. "It's also a victory for other footpath-dwellers in India."

The government has so far approved housing for 2,000 families. Mahila Milan has already built 53 houses in Dindoshi and 190 houses in Belapur.

The victory came after a 13-year struggle. The process began when the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Center helped launch Mahila Milan in 1984-85. From reaching just the 536 street families in Nagpada and Byculla in the beginning, Mahila Milan now has 150,000 women members.

Recalling her initiation as a Mahila Milan activist, Naidu says in the past, whenever she and her neighbours approached the municipal authorities, they were told land was not available.

The people were helpless in the face of demolitions. Soon after the women started getting organized, came a demolition notice for the Apna Slum. The women gathered together, ready to face any squad. The eviction was stalled.

"We felt strengthened and experienced a sense of solidarity," Naidu says, "and then we became more active."

"We had long ago realized that the agitationist approach does not provide solutions. And that if you need to ask the government for land, you go to them with your homework done," said Celine D'Cruz, senior program coordinatorof the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Center. The homework included "identifying land, organizing finance, designing their future houses according to need and space and sharing the learning process."

To identify land, the women spent months going all over the city.

Rahmatbi Sheikh, a Mahila Milan leader from Apna Slum in Byculla, recalls how she would travel ticketless with other group members, her baby in her arms, looking for vacant lots in the city.

The women also started a two-tier savings program: crisis credit for daily-survival loans and a housing plan. All 150,000 Mahila Milan members contribute one to five rupees a day, plus 50 rupees or more every month.

The group's 350 full-time activists go door to door to collect the money. The 15 core leaders in the Nagpada-Byculla area, including Ansari, Naidu and Sheikh, are all illiterate, keeping complex accounts in their heads.

Part of the savings is being used for initial construction, at 25,000 rupees per house. The rest will be used as collateral for future construction loans. In the past, without collateral, lending agencies would never give a loan to the homeless.

After building sites were found and money set aside, the process of designing houses started. Since the women did not understand concepts like square feet, they innovated.

"We would measure lengths with a spread-out sari," said Naidu, "if three times a sari is spread out, is that how big our homes should be?"

To reduce construction costs, the women learned to build their own homes. The leader women were trained in construction and overseeing jobs. Now, every day, family members contribute labor and learn on the job.

With only a mason and a consultant engineer as part of their team, the women have learned to mix cement and make blocks and beams.

The men of the community are involved in this process. "But the women are the masterminds," says A. Jockin, president of the slum-dwellers federation. "We deliberately brought them in the forefront. In decades on the pavement, men had brought no improvement in the communities. We said, women have better communication skills, they manage finances better, they make good architects since they know exactly what their homes should be like."

In the beginning, the men resisted, Sheikh said, "but then they saw our work was leading to a permanent home and became more amenable."

The new homes will be in the names of the women. The group has taken measures to ensure that the new owners cannot sell the houses and return to the streets.

"Our lives were spent on the footpath," said Naidu. "We have built all this for our children and grandchildren. They must have a better chance in life."